


Stars on the Sea

by dustoftheancients



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Drama, Everything is cyclical, F/M, Fate, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, Reylo - Freeform, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Spoilers, There’s a bit of Orpheus here, a touch of that feeling that maybe this time this time this time-
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:15:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22045468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustoftheancients/pseuds/dustoftheancients
Summary: Their story always has the same ending. Swimming against the tides of fate will get them nowhere, and yet—Ben swims.Hope is a bright, sharp thing. Dangerous to those not used to it.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 36
Kudos: 99





	Stars on the Sea

**Author's Note:**

> Well, here I am. Over two years later.
> 
> Please forgive me for any mistakes I’ve failed to correct, and for leaning far too heavily on my usual writing crutches.
> 
> This contains spoilers for tros.

This was it.

He was dead.

Nothing of him remained, almost. Very nearly gone, like the last shade of blue in the sky just before the total darkness of night. Transient. No more than a shadow. A breath. A rippling reflection in the ocean, soon to be overtaken by waves.

All he felt — all that was left — was an echo of a touch, a tiny brush against his cheek. He heard his name, far, far away.

Ben.

Then he felt nothing.

He faded.

He was nothing.

-

Ben died. 

-

And then he woke up.

-

It was different, the world Ben woke up into. He could tell from the moment he opened his eyes. Something — not quite real. Not solid. There was a heaviness here, a darkness in his chest that was not from within him. Deep, dark shadows surrounded him.

“Rey,” he called out, nearly frantic. There was no answer.

Something was wrong.

He sat up. Looked around. He could not see anything; the thick darkness hid nearly everything from him. It pressed down all around, suffocating. But, then — he could see was a hundred pinprick stars far, far above, like he was looking out a viewport. Only, he wasn’t. It was just — blackness around him, and then stars above him. The light from the stars illuminated almost nothing; he could barely see his hand in front of him.

It was if he was sitting on nothing.

Slowly, on-edge and full of a strange dread, he started to push himself to his feet. His body was still so sore. Sore from falling down a pit, sore from dying. 

Whatever the darkness was, it supported him well enough. He straightened to his full height, tentatively putting weight on his damaged leg. A dull pain thrummed throughout his body, but he did not seem to be actually injured. Not anymore.

He pressed the palm of his hand into his ribs where he had broken them during the fall. It was the same — dull pain, but no wound.

Dead, yet still in pain. It figured. 

Ben looked around. Still, nothing surrounded him but the darkness, and the faint stars above. Slowly, he took a step. Then another. Then—

The stars rushed towards him. He started to duck on reflex. They crashed in on him all at once.

Light blinded his vision, but he wasn’t in pain. Warmth spread across his chest and arms—

Then gravity did a strange flip, and he fell on his side. The ground that caught him was solid and gray. A durasteel grate. It almost bit into his shoulder the same way it would have if he had been alive, but there was still a difference. Something that told him he was not really there.

He still felt nothing.

But, then, like someone turning on a light—

Rey.

He felt her.

She was there.

Ben scrambled to his feet, no longer careful of his soreness.

The confusing dream around him no longer mattered. He needed to find her. That was the only thing he knew, the only thought filling his brain. He reached out, gingerly, almost fearfully.

She was still there. Their connection still alive as ever. And she was close to him, close enough that his mind naturally tugged him to her. He tried to mentally nudge her, make sure she was alright. But—

She was closed off to him. The wrongness of it settled in his gut like stones. Panic tried to claw its way in between his ribs. The darkness started to return around him and in him weighed down oppressively.

There was no decision. He had to go to her.

Ben pushed himself up, taking in his new surroundings. The durasteel walkway, the sharp stone walls, the harsh lighting. Everything was so familiar, he knew it instantly to be the sharp architecture of the First Order. It looked like a base.

It looked like Starkiller base, as impossible as that was. Perhaps it really was all just a dream, one last flow of memories and impossibilities before his mind went out forever.

It didn’t matter. He didn’t care if his consciousness was about to disappear forever.

He would find Rey first.

It did not matter what happened after that.

“Rey—”

He felt her, for a moment. Like seeing through muddy waters. He got ahold of the veins of their connection and tried to pull her to him. Pull Rey to him. He needed to make sure she was alright, that she was—

But something stopped him. It felt like putting his hand up against glass, so close, but incapable of going farther. Fear bled into his gut like poison. Was it because he was dead? Would he never again be able to feel the end of their bond, so achingly near and yet never to be touched?

When he last saw her, moments ago — because it had been, it had only been moments since he had gone, he was sure — it had seemed like—

He could hardly bring himself to think it. To allow himself to think it.

She had kissed him.

And, for a brief, shining moment, he knew what she had hoped — knew it because he felt radiate from within her. Her heart had beat wildly, alive and wonderful after those excruciating moments of stillness, and it had stretched across their bond to his own heart. Despite their bond being ravaged by darkness, their connection never lessened, and he had felt her shining hope that now she had him, now they could—

But they couldn’t. They didn’t.

He died.

And now he was in a nightmare, standing in the place where he killed his father and unable to reach Rey. Dead.

He had been sure he would never step foot on that base again — on any First Order base. Dream or not. After everything, knowing how that place had been the death of his father. No. He had killed his father, not this place, haunted as it was.

It felt deeply wrong to stand there. As if he was back where he started. As if he would somehow slip, lose control of his limbs, and kill his father again.

As if he would somehow have to battle Rey again.

Guilt and regret and shame twisted in his gut. Was he going to be cursed to relive his greatest sin? Was this the way the Force saw fit to punish him? He couldn’t say he didn’t deserve it.

But, then, before he could sink too far into his thoughts, the scene around him changed, shifting like sand, and suddenly he was in another part of the base. He stood in front of a closed door in the middle of a hallway, empty save for the faint outline of a set of armor guarding the door. Like someone had been there, once.

It took him a moment to realize. 

Rey.

She was there, just beyond that door.

Still so far.

Too far.

That didn’t matter. If all that stood between them was a kriffing door, then it was as good as nothing standing between them at all. Even if she was just a half-remembered dream — all he wanted was to see her. Just for a moment. Just once more.

To touch her cheek, her hair.

To see her smile — Force, he would take her scowl. She had a beautiful scowl.

All he had to do was—

A slow, gentle touch on his arm stopped him from barreling through the door. He froze. For one brief, heart-stopping moment, he thought it was his mother, come to stop him. To torment or to forgive. That somehow — despite the impossibility of it all — she had returned to him. Even if it was all in his head.

He turned.

It was not his mother.

A woman dressed in a dark velvet gown, she stood out against the stark halls around them. She carried herself like she had never bent her back once in her life, but her eyes were big and soft.

She was shorter than Rey. More elegant than Rey by far. More delicate.

“Who are you?” The words spilled out his mouth.

The woman turned her gaze up to him from where she had been focused on the door.

He stared.

“I’m dead.” He said lamely. Almost a question. Almost a hope. What if—

The woman nodded slowly, as if she felt for him. “You are.”

The feeling that blossomed in his chest was strange, a feeling he had never experienced before. Almost acidic, but heavy. Disappointment. Resignation. Bitter amusement at how pathetic he was.

Still dead.

He had nearly wanted it, once. More than once.

But, now—

Ben looked back to the closed door. His heart ached.

Would it split in two? No. No, it wouldn’t. He was dead, so it wouldn’t.

“I don’t want to be dead.” It was barely more than a whisper. He didn’t know why he said that to her, why he admitted that.

There was not one ounce of him that regretted giving his life up for Rey’s. But, selfishly, he had wanted—

It didn’t matter what he wanted.

A small squeeze on his arm brought his attention back to the small woman beside him. He did not realize until that moment that she hadn’t removed her hand from his arm. Her expression twisted into a deep sympathy.

“What’s your name?” She asked.

“Ben.”

What did it matter, he almost added. But, then she smiled.

“I’m very happy to meet you, Ben.”

He stared at her for a moment. “Are you dead, too?”

She nodded. “I am. Although, it’s been for a great deal longer than you, I think.”

“Were you a Jedi?”

The woman looked surprised at his guess. “Not at all,” she lifted her heavy velvet skirt a bit, as if to remind him. “Do I look dressed to fight the Sith?”

“Appearances can be deceiving.”

“I’m flattered.” She looked a tiny bit amused.

“Fine, then. Sith?”

The spark in her eye blotted out in a moment. “Never.”

He said nothing more. After a moment, he turned back to the door. He took a step forward, close enough to raise his hand up to the durasteel. He could feel before he touched it that we would not be able to move it.

He dropped his hand.

“Do you know who is behind this door?”

“The woman you love.”

He took a deep, shaky breath.

“Maybe.”

He heard the rustle of her dress as she moved closer. “You don’t know?”

“I never got the chance to know.”

“The look on your face tells me that you did.”

He snapped his attention back to the woman. “Why are you here? Why am I here?”

She nodded, as if she had been anticipating the question. Maybe she had.

“I’m trying to save someone I love very much,” she spoke carefully, as if she was not sure how much to divulge. “Perhaps you can relate.”

He said nothing.

“And, you, Ben, are here because I need your help.”

Ben tried once more to reach out across his and Rey’s bond, tried again to feel the bright spirit on the other end of the thread the Force had tied between them. It was like trying to shout through a monsoon. Again, he could not get close, couldn’t quite connect. She remained terrifyingly out of reach.

“What about—”

“You will see her again. Just be patient.”

Irritation swelled in him alongside the fear. But, before he got the change to answer her, someone rounded the corner on other end of the hall. A dark, solid figure among faded apparitions.

Ben watched himself round the corner on the other end of the hall.

Or, rather—

Ben as Kylo Ren stalked down the hall towards them, fists clenched at his sides. He wore his helmet, but Ben remembered what it was like to be the hidden one. His ever-present scowl, the sweat on his brow. His ignorance.

He realized — this was a memory. Or, part of a memory.

Ben stared openly.

“How—”

“Time’s funny,” the woman said beside him. They both watched as Kylo approached, totally unaware of the two of them. Totally unaware that an older, dead him was blocking his way into the room holding Rey — the scavenger, as she had been back when he still wore the mask and the cowl.

“The Force does a lot of things that make no sense to me. It doesn’t seem to care very much about getting the order of things right. It’s like a bunch of weeds on a swamp, one moment tangled up next to something that happened years before.” Ben only half listened to the woman. Mostly, he kept his eyes on himself.

Kylo Ren walked up to the door and immediately went into the room. He walked right through Ben and the woman as if they did not exist. In a way, they didn’t. Ben saw the back of the torture table, the same one Rey had been strapped to — had it really only been a year ago? 

“Rey—” he called out, his heart nearly bursting from relief. But, then, he remembered how he had been then, how sure of himself and only just intrigued enough in the scavenger to leave her unharmed. He swallowed. The door shut. He spun on the woman when he felt her grab his arm again.

“This is only a looking-glass,” she told him. “You can’t change anything. She can’t see you.”

“Then why am I seeing this?” He demanded.

She frowned, lifted her chin in the way that dignitaries almost always did. “I told you, I need your help.”

He frowned, talking to himself more than her. “If this is only a looking-glass, why can I still feel our bond? This is the first time she and I met, I didn’t even have a bond with her yet.”

“It’s because you did have a bond. You, now, Ben. And you’ll always have that bond.”

“What does that mean?”

“I had a bond with the man I loved, and I’ll always have that bond, too. That’s the way it works. The way we get to try again.” She paused. “Here, I’ll show you.” 

The world around them faded until it became nothing. Nothing surrounded them but darkness and stars. This was what he had woken up to.

There was only enough light to illuminate the edges of their figures. The woman in her dark dress nearly disappeared in the darkness around her, but for that small light. It felt like another dream. It felt like looking at a map and having no idea where he was.

It felt—

It was filled with the Living Force. So much raw life. The emptiness felt full, like an ocean. The darkness felt warm. Like an open womb, full of life, just waiting for something to be created.

He never thought—

“What,” he breathed, but couldn’t get the rest of the words out. The woman nodded beside him.

“It’s amazing, I know. I used to stay here for long stretches of time.”

“How is this supposed to explain me and Rey’s bond?”

“Just wait,” she told him, “Don’t be so impatient.”

She seemed to be looking for something. Ben took a steadying breath and tried to wait. For whatever it was.

It wasn’t like he had somewhere to be, anyway.

And then—

A tiny thread of light, no thicker than a single strand in the tiniest spider’s web, wound itself out of one star, reaching towards another. They both watched as the two pinpricks connected, then brightened. The thread between them made them both glow brighter. Another thread materialized between two different stars, and the same thing happened. And then another, then another. More and more stars connected, and then they started to glow. Some of the threads simply appeared, as if they had been there all alone.

Everything started to glow. Ben could see his hands, he could see the small, sad smile on the woman’s face as she watched the stars.

She pointed to one of the pairs of stars.

“See that one?”

He nodded.

“That’s me and my husband,” she explained.

He stared. “How?”

“Because the Force binds us, sometimes. It makes us stronger, and it makes the Force stronger.”

“But you’re dead.”

She threw him a wry look. “So are you.”

He pressed his lips together in a frown.

“Aren’t you going to ask me where you and Rey are?”

After a brief moment of just taking in the lights and Force around him, Ben closed his eyes. He reached out and found what he was looking for instantly. “No.”

“No?” She raised her eyebrows, although he could see by the glimmer in her eye she knew the answer. Still, he answered her.

He shook his head. “No. I can feel it.”

Turning to the left, he pointed at two far-away stars. They pulsed with light between them, warm and glowing with the rest of the stars. He felt an incredible yearning to reach towards them, to fly until he reached those stars and bathe in the light of it. To go to Rey’s star and be consumed by her.

Oh, how he wanted—

Instead, he dropped his arm. 

“I don’t mean to sound cryptic,” the woman said slowly, keeping her eyes on his and Rey’s stars. “But one of the defining characteristics of binary planets is that they go in circles.”

He furrowed his brow. “What are you saying?”

She dropped her gaze back to him. “I’m saying that we’re tied and we go in circles, and our stories don’t change. From what I’ve seen.”

When she did not elaborate, he asked, “What have you seen?”

The woman locked eyes with him. There was a thick, heavy pause. She took a breath.

“Stories. We’re little more than stories, Ben. And we tell the same stories every time. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen me and my husband fall in love—over and over—and I’ve seen where that leads, every time. I’ve watched you, and I’ve watched you die for your Rey—”

“That’s not possible,” Ben interjected. “The Force doesn’t—”

She held up her hand. “The Force doesn’t what?” She asked. “We’re standing here, looking at the very fabric of the Force that ties our lives together and you say ‘the Force doesn’t’?” Her expression softened. “Ben, if there’s one thing I’ve learned since dying, it’s that the Force can do anything.”

He remained silent for a long moment.

“What’s wrong with stories?” He finally asked.

“Nothing,” she shook her head. “Unless the story is a tragedy.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I’ve seen you die for her, Ben. For Rey. I’ve seen it happen a hundred times.”

“No, you haven’t.” Was his immediate reaction. She smiled a bit at that, although it was a devastatingly sad smile.

He had to look away.

He didn’t want to believe that — wouldn’t believe it.

Rey.

He had—

Hoped.

No. It didn’t matter.

Doomed.

Cursed.

Of course he was. That’s how it had been his entire life. He should not have expected it to change now that he was dead.

He clenched his fists.

“It’s going to be different this time, Ben. I promise.”

Ben shifted his gaze to the thread that tied the woman and her husband’s fates. “If what you’re saying is true, then,” he took a breath, “there’s nothing to be done. I’m dead. It’s over.”

“It’s not over.”

He felt the pressure of the woman’s hand over his clenched fists. He let her take his hands into her own. They were very small hands, and they held his very delicately.

“It’s not. But this is why I need your help.”

After a beat, he looked back at her. Her mouth was set in a very familiar line.

He thought of Rey and her smile, that smile she had given him moments before his death. He was already separated from her, probably for the rest of his existence. What further tragedy could befall him? He had already met his cursed fate.

“How?”

A spark of something like fire glinted in her eye. “You’re going to go back. Back to life, back to her.”

He stared, unable to accept the hope — that bright, dangerous hope — she offered. He swallowed.

“What do I need to do?”

“Nothing,” she shook her head. “Nothing but for you find Rey and rewrite your story—make it a happy one.”

“How are you able to do this? You said yourself, you’re not a Jedi.”

She smiled.

“With a lot of help.”

The stars around them started to flicker, the threads between them fading back to black. Once more, the woman became little more than a dark outline. And then, the stars began to move, as if the two of them were moving across the void of space.

“What’s in it for you?” He asked. “How does helping me help the person you love?”

“My, you’re full of questions, Ben. Would you accept it if I told you I care about what happens to you? Does it matter? You’re about to see your Rey again.”

Their movement across the vastness of stars went faster and faster. They were traveling quickly, and in the distance a small planet came into view.

“But—why?”

She didn’t answer him, but instead dropped his hands. He could feel, somehow, that he was about to leave her.

The planet grew larger with each passing second. Everything around him became brighter. He was sure that they only had moments before they crashed into the planet, but the thought barely registered.

For a split second, a wild, impossible thought flashed in his head. The words started to come out before he could stop them.

“Are you—”

“I just want to see two people who love each other have a happy ending to their story, that’s all. I’ll be with you, Ben, and the Force will be with you.”

And then the planet loomed in front of them, and Ben’s vision became consumed by light.


End file.
